10 February 2019 7:36 AM

You have been warned: The Thought Police are coming

Next week I shan't be speaking to students at the University of Portsmouth, because their union has banned me from doing so.

These weasels pretended they were 'postponing' the meeting, an oily, misleading formula that fooled a surprising number of people.

But the truth is that they stopped the event because they don't like my opinions. That proves they cannot be trusted with freedom of speech. They came up with one pretext for policing thought and imposing censorship this time. They are equally capable of coming up with another, whenever required.

In any case, why would I ever go back to such a place? They are absolutely not ashamed of what they did.

As is usual, my attackers went to great lengths to be offended, digging deep into dusty archives to find things I have said that they could disapprove of.

It is not a great blow to me, personally. I don't ask for or get a fee. I have been spared two long, uncomfortable train journeys and a night in a budget hotel, when I could instead have been at home.

I do these things mainly because I'm asked and because I love debate, and because I suspect that many students have far too few chances to hear views that are different from the standard-issue conformist Leftism that is their normal diet. What upsets me about this ban is that it is a general menace to freedom of speech, thought and assembly.

You may say that the antics of a few self-important zealots at Portsmouth University don't count for much. But I've met similar problems in many places.

And the students who impose these bans will all too soon be the civil servants, MPs, lawyers, police officers, journalists and above all teachers of tomorrow.

We are breeding a generation of Thought Policemen. They have been taught what to think, not how to think. Disagreement makes them frightened and angry.

Freedom of speech and thought cannot survive if they are not defended and understood by such people. I can't just now see anything that can save us from becoming a censored, unfree country, short of a revolution in our disastrous school system, where conformist teachers drill conformist students in the catechisms of the Left.

As so often, all I can offer is a warning. This is what is coming. It begins like this, and it ends with arrests of dissidents at four in the morning, conducted by people who are quite sure that what they are doing is right.

Another dose of bias - delivered by the BBC's Midwives

The BBC likes nothing better than to hijack a popular, cosy entertainment and turn it into propaganda for its radical opinions.

When ‘Call the Midwife’ first began it swiftly gained an audience because of its reassuring backgrounds ,likeable and admirable nuns, midwives, doctors and an old-fashioned working class district on the edge of change.

But then it developed an agenda, politically correct (of course), making use of its well-liked and attractive actors, such as Helen George, to make various points.

I’m old enough and suspicious enough to think that a lot of this is false to the period it claims to portray. But let it pass. What I cannot put up with is the repeated propaganda for abortion on demand.

The programme has now done this twice. In 2013 it portrayed a gruesome back street abortion before the watershed. Last week it depicted another one, in which a happily-married mother of two was shown as being so upset at becoming pregnant that she sought to destroy the baby (this time the crime was unseen) in some dingy kitchen.

Speaking like a 21st century feminist, this 1960s woman was portrayed as saying ‘It isn't what I wanted. Are women not allowed to want or not want things? I thought it was going to be different for us, that we were going to be able to choose.’ Note the word ‘choose’, the abortionists’ euphemism for the choice they support – killing the unwanted baby.

She then died of the resulting infection. Everyone involved, from the doctor who had refused to arrange a legal abortion, to the midwives who knew her, to the supposedly devout nuns, was shown regretting that she couldn’t have had an abortion. ‘Trixie’, played by Helen George, was shown making a pro-abortion speech to the police: ‘We see this all the time. Young, young girls, exhausted older women, mothers who don’t know when their next penny or next beating is coming from, and others who want to take control of their bodies and their lives. And all we can do is pat them on the hand and say “you’ll manage, everybody does”. But not everybody does. Not everybody believes us. So sorry. I can’t help you. I’m even more sorry that I couldn’t help her.’ Nobody, as far as I could see, was shown disagreeing with this view.

Actually, I would guess most nurses, midwives and doctors, and all nuns, were still very much against abortion at that time. It had in fact been legal under very restricted circumstances since a case in 1938, where a brave doctor, Aleck Bourne, turned himself in after aborting a young girl who had been gang-raped by soldiers, and was acquitted. Bourne ever afterwards refused to do another abortion, and opposed the 1967 Act which hugely liberalised it.

As for ‘seeing it all the time’, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the 1960s flatly refuted pro-abortion claims that there were tens of thousands of illegal backstreet operations, and huge numbers of deaths resulting. They said that the number of such deaths averaged 50 a year throughout England and Wales. Regrettable and tragic, no doubt. But instead we now have 180,000 babies killed every year in legal abortions. Is this better? There was, after all, another solution to such problems. In 1968, there were almost 25,000 adoptions a year, by parents who very much wanted children. Now it’s nearer 5,000 a year. If programmes such as ‘Call the Midwife’ are going to editorialise on this subject, let them at least give both sides.

he BBC likes nothing better than to hijack a popular, cosy entertainment and turn it into propaganda for its radical opinions.

When ‘Call the Midwife’ first began it swiftly gained an audience because of its reassuring backgrounds ,likeable and admirable nuns, midwives, doctors and an old-fashioned working class district on the edge of change.

But then it developed an agenda, politically correct (of course), making use of its well-liked and attractive actors, such as Helen George, to make various points.

I’m old enough and suspicious enough to think that a lot of this is false to the period it claims to portray. But let it pass. What I cannot put up with is the repeated propaganda for abortion on demand.

The programme has now done this twice. In 2013 it portrayed a gruesome back street abortion before the watershed. Last week it portrayed another one, in which a happily-married mother of two was shown as being so upset at becoming pregnant that she sought to destroy the baby (this time the crime was unseen) in some dingy kitchen.

Speaking like a 21st century feminist, this 1960s woman was portrayed as saying ‘It isn't what I wanted. Are women not allowed to want or not want things? I thought it was going to be different for us, that we were going to be able to choose.’ Note the word ‘choose’, the abortionists’ euphemism for the choice they support – killing the unwanted baby.

She then died of the resulting infection. Everyone involved, from the doctor who had refused to arrange a legal abortion, to the midwives who knew her, to the supposedly devout nuns, was shown regretting that she couldn’t have had an abortion. ‘Trixie’, played by Helen George, was shown making a pro-abortion speech to the police: ‘We see this all the time. Young, young girls, exhausted older women, mothers who don’t know when their next penny or next beating is coming from, and others who want to take control of their bodies and their lives. And all we can do is pat them on the hand and say “you’ll manage, everybody does”. But not everybody does. Not everybody believes us. So sorry. I can’t help you. I’m even more sorry that I couldn’t help her.’ Nobody, as far as I could see, was shown disagreeing with this view.

Actually, I would guess most nurses, midwives and doctors, and all nuns, were still very much against abortion at that time. It had in fact been legal under very restricted circumstances since a case in 1938, where a brave doctor, Aleck Bourne, turned himself in after aborting a young girl who had been gang-raped by soldiers, and was acquitted. Bourne ever afterwards refused to do another abortion, and opposed the 1967 Act which hugely liberalised it.

As for ‘seeing it all the time’, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the 1960s flatly refuted pro-abortion claims that there were tens of thousands of illegal backstreet operations, and huge numbers of deaths resulting. They said that the number of such deaths averaged 50 a year throughout England and Wales. Regrettable and tragic, no doubt. But instead we now have 180,000 babies killed every year in legal abortions. Is this better? There was, after all, another solution to such problems. In 1968, there were almost 25,000 adoptions a year, by parents who very much wanted children. Now it’s nearer 5,000 a year. If programmes such as ‘Call the Midwife’ are going to editorialise on this subject, let them at least give both sides.

*******

I have now seen the distressing – and probably unnecessary – short film Detainment, which portrays one aspect of the murder (by two boys) of the toddler James Bulger in 1993 on Merseyside.

I felt I ought to view it before giving an opinion on it, and I can quite see why James Bulger's mother is angry about it, not least because the makers neither consulted nor informed her, which is plainly wrong.

I think it is simply not fitting that such a work is being considered for the Oscars, a frivolous showbusiness event of mutual backslapping, usually accompanied by comedians and followed by parties. This was a real murder, and it still causes vast pain to many.

I truly cannot see what the point of making it was. If you wish to consider the case, read the terrible accounts which are available. If there was anything to be learned from it, it was that our surveillance society, then in its infancy, can watch but cannot save. The cameras recorded James Bulger's abduction, but they could not cry out or warn.

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My thanks to those of you who supported the petition calling for an inquiry into the connection between marijuana and violent crime. We are now close to the 10,000 signatures needed to get a Government response, but not quite there. The much bigger task – of getting 100,000 supporters to secure a parliamentary debate – may be too much. But could you try? Here is the link:

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Bill
I suspect, " over the phone", lets them off the hook because he might just have had to engage in actual dialogue face to face.
What I'd call a, "cop out".
I do remember very well, the days when the beat bobby was out on duty and even wives had dialogue with villagers and those passing through, or phoning wanting or giving information.
It reminds of the time when as a family, you were looked favourably on, with tax allowances helping family. Even family allowance. Not for first child but for second. Which I thought was sensible. Changed around 1977 so you could claim for first child.
Lots of attitudes changing by then and no more than in the teaching profession.
If Call the Midwife is condensing programmes as soaps do to make so much look like the norm then you should watch Back in Time for School.

In 1964 my road was full of married couples, lots of politeness. My mum nipped next door to help with birth of a neighbour's child. Doctors came out and made house calls.
I remember going to the doctors and you took a number and were seen that surgery.
Your family doctor knew you, had treated your parents.
A feeling of continuity. I noticed tte old Quality St tin colours in C. T. Midwife!
The snow of ' 63. My road, few cars rolling snow to the bottom on the very wide verge, rolling it back. Sick with cold fingers, in for a warm by the fire, fresh gloves, mum at home lots of mums, keeping us in order and in and out of gardens. Not bedrooms
If a misdemeanour had occurred, waiting for dad to come.
Early 70's while abortions were happening, the norm was marriage and settling down. Courting. Getting engaged. Pre Hello weddings. Lots of dressmaking wedding dresses.
Borrowed dresseses handed down stuff
Knitting matinee coats, mums, mum-in- laws, aunties knitting, crocheting shawls.
Old fisherman style scales weighing babies in a nappy hooked uo!.
Clinics to weigh and chart growth and just being left alone bringing up and getting young, " school ready".
Us mums swapped knowledge, with all ages of females and there was a great community feel, without interference.

I’m simply making the observation that liberal celebrities, and liberals in the media who want mass immigration, and have no time for the people who’s jobs are lost should be exposed to the consequence of their ideas,

Maybe if their jobs were replaced by immigrants for a fraction if their lavish salaries they would not be quite so happy with the outcome? I’m sure you could replace the host of Match of the Day with a Syrian refugee for a fraction of the £1.7 million salary.

Liberals in the establishment never have to endure their own stupid and silly policies. It’s like liberals who oppose Grammar schools, and then send their own kids to private or selective or religious schools. Or demand higher taxes while avoiding taxes.

To Mrs.B. | 12 February 2019 at 07:39 AM: I'm afraid the whole tenor of the thing is contained in the information that "the Suffolk police have had to *phone* an apology to a 74 year old lady" [my emphasis].

That is just typical of the insincerity of "apologies" by our rulers.

For it to have been genuine, the Chief Constable should have apologised in person, at her house, and given her a large bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine - paid for out of his own pocket, not by the taxpayer.

One sees terrible irony here. Was PH similarly outraged when his Marxist friends were limiting free speech during his youth?

The so-called Portsmouth university is nothing more than an anarchist swap and a backdoor migration conduit. And when it comes down to it, the subversion and perversion surrounding homosexual and gender issues will overwhelmingly trump anything PH has to say on the subject of outdated free speech Why go there? It deserves nothing less than the Mosul treatment!

And why be surprised at the actions of our beloved police? They are robots and take orders from above. Too many older people still believe those in uniform and with titles are pillars of moral and social rectitude. Rather their concern is survival and being paid for whatever they are asked to do. Like soldiers they are not recruited to question their orders.

I'm pleased to see that you have used this post as your main Sunday column. The tragic loss of freedom of speech is such a threat to us all it needs to be pointed out as much as possible.For far too long (since the traitorous Blair) we have been putting up with more and more of this dangerous nonsense which gets worse and worse year on year promoted fully by the media and the BBC

Perhaps a petition to shut down the BBC and we should stop paying the licence fee en masse for starters. I know this has been talked about before as the institution has become an enormous carbuncle of huge salaries and corruption and particularly a mouthpiece for the left.
Perhaps the bigwigs there already fear this because I notice the various ways they have tried to present themselves as the lovable benign 'aunty' to the people, much loved by all. They put on old favourites just to keep us happy and pretend that they really don't mind non PC stuff though always with their infuriating warnings like 'this program may contain offensive themes' and so on. They love to remind us of their adopted status as a public 'treasure', the lovable granny as the background of our lives, as the decades pass, marked by their own 'golden oldies'. It's all cloaked in warm sounding names so we needn't be afraid.

A casual look at the current adverts for Valentine's Day reflects the decline in standards too, and what we are prepared to have put in front of us daily on the TV. No longer presented as a romantic thing between a man and a woman, it is now an overtly sexualised occasion between men and women and men and men and possibly women and women. I was so surprised I think I missed some of it but in these days of equality, they must have covered all possibilities. No doubt soon, transgender will get a look in, though I'm not too sure how they will manage to convey this.
Such adverts have undergone a huge change. In this, a sultry woman in very short underwear shown closely and suggestively from behind together with the gay message and the lack of romance is now typical of the PC 'on message' output of the television.
I thought for a moment I was watching a trailer for an upcoming sleaze movie.

> "..the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the 1960s flatly refuted pro-abortion claims that there were tens of thousands of illegal backstreet operations, and huge numbers of deaths resulting. They said that the number of such deaths averaged 50 a year throughout England and Wales."

---

Perhaps I read it here, if not someone might want to research the details.

Apparently the number of illegal abortion deaths (of the ex mothers, of course, the death rate for the babies being nearly, but not quite, 100%) was "only" around four times that of the NHS/legal abortion tally.

But if there were tens of thousands of illegal backstreet abortions, and only a handful of legal ones, then backstreet abortion must be thousands of time safer than NHS ones.

Similarly I've read that someone once calculated that if the numbers of backstreet abortions, and numbers of deaths, claimed in Roe vs Wade were true: women would have died out in about three generations!

Very recently here in once sleepy Suffolk the Suffolk police have had to phone an apology to a 74 year old lady.

It is reported they were," misguided" in giving her a warning to, "tone down", her remarks online, in respect of her concerns that the new Gender Recognition Act could be exploited by males. She was voicing concerns that no medical evidence is required to change identity.
One can think of the case of the prisoner who indeed ask to be moved to a female wing
as had changed identity, to be transferred, for much publicised disasterous results.

I was listening to Radio 4 the other day and it seems prisons may have transgender wings. Reality catches up and common sense might be prevailing?
Perhaps loos will too?

The students that prevented Peter Hitchens from debating at the University of Portsmouth the other day would have been in their natural element in Franco's Spain. The old army general was a felon who rebelled against the very Government he had sworn to protect, while university students who deny the basic right to talk -- I repeat, to talk -- to citizens of this country commit an act of felony to the freedom of speech that universities are meant to promote and protect. Curiously enough Wikipedia, of all places, says amongst other things under the heading 'University' that “An important idea in the definition of a university is the notion of academic freedom.” But never mind Wikipedia, the beginning of the malady that really is the authoritarian educational cancer that Peter Hitchens encountered in Portsmouth is nothing new as expressed by our columnist and other commenters. For whatever it may be worth, some years ago I had the enormous temerity to start a conversation on the Bible with a university student. I said to this person that according to some academics who have studied the Catholic Bible in great depth they have concluded that it contains some historical inaccuracies. “You can't say that!” came back his quick reply, “you can be arrested by the police if I were to report you for it” he added with an obvious frown accompanied with an exasperated tone of voice. I tried to reason with him the importance of people's basic right of freedom of thought and expression but to no avail. In actual fact, the more I tried to explain my point of view the angrier this young person got so I prudently gave up. Regrettably, Peter Hitchens is correct: universities have become factories of mega intolerance -- as well as, in my modest opinion, lots and lots of utter and total useless courses. In this precarious state of affairs, we had better start crossing ourselves. PS I thoroughly enjoyed reading your articles “There is a Happy Land - the Genius of Keith Waterhouse” -- I used to read Mr. Waterhouse columns in the Daily Mail and liked his style a lot -- and “Some Reflections on 'The Battle of the Villa Fiorita' by Rumer Godden” -- “‘Rumer Godden’. It looks as if it is on backwards, *just as a bald man with a beard looks as if he has put his head on upside down,*” *I like this rather accurate sharp-witted comparison very much. Also, I have just signed your petition “Launch an inquiry into the possible link between cannabis and violence.” Thank you.

Yes, I concede that in these dark days when the Conservstive party is now equally as fake and liberal as the other parties they will not pursue my idea. In fact. Mrs May seems to prefer to go on the BBCs Andrew Marr show to push her policies. As long as they are anti no deal Brexit, and endles equality and diversity she will be given an easy ride by the BBC.

I loathe the institution now and regard it as a fifth column smugly destroying this country while paying ludicrous salaries to its Marxist presenters to push this nonsense.

The BBC is the home for the millionaire Marxist hypocrite where they don’t practice what they preach. White, mostly male executives attacking their own culture. The head of BBC comedy (a white man) boasted recently that the BBC would not now hire six white men from Oxbridge. (Ie Mony Python) Or another white many, this time head of BBC 4 said the age of the white male presenters was coming to an end.

The BBC is full of self loathing white liberals who hate their own country, and culture, but are happy for us to fund their salaries. I propose replacing most of them with Syrian refugees for a fraction of their salaries. Let them experience the vey policies they so support. Am sure we could get immigrants to present Match of the day for a fraction of Gary Linikers ludicrous salary. Or Dan Snow could be replaced by a Afghanistan migrant seeker for £25 thousand a year..

Anyone interested in my post of 10 February 2019 at 07:10 PM may be interested to know that article-6690829 bears the headline
"Boris Johnson attacks police for 'wasting time' after mother is arrested for calling transgender woman a man".

Of course Boris knows a vote-catcher when he sees one, but it is still good to see a heavyweight getting involved.

BTW, we are told that policing in Britain is done "with the consent of the policed".

I wonder what percentage of the voters living in the Hertfordshire Constabulary's "patch" consent to this sort of policing?

Sally. Thanks for your response (and for your consistently excellent contributions to the comments page). I'm not sure, however, that your solution is simpler; it can hardly be simpler than junking your television. More pertinently, is it probable? The chances of the faux-liberal political mainstream (on both sides of the house) damaging their own media mouthpiece are almost nil.

I agree with Colin. Shoot the damn thing out. Watch Fellini, Tarkovsky and Buster Keaton. Listen to Bach and Bob Dylan. Read Peter Hitchens, Shakespeare, Walter Scott and the Psalms. Talk to your family and pray to God.

Just like everybody else, Mr Hitchens is completely free to say what ever he wants. Even in Portsmouth.

Posted by: Charlie B | 11 February 2019 at 07:03 AM

What planet have you been living on for the past ten/twenty years?

In today's Britain NOBODY is completely free to say whatever he (or she, or whoever) wants, although, just as down on the farm, some people are considerably freer than others. But the reality is that you can get a visit from the police simply for using what someone else decides to claim is their "wrong" gender pronoun. Of course, if you're of the Left you can quite easily pretend to ignore (as you are doing) this draconian state of affairs, because you will get a free pass to be as beastly as you like about conservatives, but if you should ever, even accidently, stray off the straight and increasingly narrow (pretty rare for the Left, as it would involve thinking) you will find yourself re-educated in very short order, as the bizarre case of left-wing luvvie, Benedict Cumberbatch will confirm.

He found himself accused of good-ol' boy style racism and white supremacy simply for using the term 'coloured people,' albeit completely non-perjoratively, in an interview. Smelling salts had to be handed out across the neurotic, hair-trigger mainstream media, which managed to blithely ignore the fact that the largest and most high profile campaign organisation in the USA is still to this day called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In dysfunctional, factional times like these, the very phrase "just like everyone else" has no meaning. None whatsoever.

Whilst what you say is true, most people don’t want to throw away their tv, and want to watch a variety of channels. They also don’t want to be constantly harassed in their homes by BBC enforcement officers coming round to check if they have a television. And the BBC have announced they are stepping up their activities to go after non payers of the licence fee.

A much simpler solution would be if the govt allows the licence fee to become voluntary. Then the BBC will have to actually make programmes for a wider range of the public or risk losing large amounts of revenue. This will force them to stop churning out non stop liberal propaganda or many people will simply not pay.

I completely agree with your analysis. The Blairite left, which is modelled on the Clinton Democrats are no longer in politics to help the working class. Instead they are in it to get rich for themselves by doing favours for globalised capital. They talk the language of the old left, but they are out to enrich themselves, and their cronies.

That is why Clinton out spent Trump by over 2 to 1. She was backed by the big Wall Street banks ,tech, media & pharmaceutical companies,. They have no principles apart for doing whatever their money donors want. And what these companies want is a rigged system where competition is restricted by regulation of their smaller competitors. This ensures they make huge profits and the price of consumer goods rises. As most Blairite’s are former Communists they have little problem with private monopoly, because they don’t believe in competition anyway.

This form of crony capitalism is not in the interest of many of their voters.So they have to offer them something which sounds like they are inclusive and liberal. Which is why identity politics is now pushed so hard. It pretends to offer the young and the idealistic something real. It’s fake of course, and is cheap to administer. Which is now pushed relentlessly by universities ,and liberal media like BBC.

The new left is a coalition of the wealthy, and those on benefits. If you work in the middle you are just a giant cash cow to be milked through higher taxes, and predatory pricing. This has lead to the working class deserting the new left to vote for both Brexit and Trump, angering the celebrity, liberal media elite who’s well being is not challenged by the policies driving down wages of mass immigration.
.

You have to be incredibly naive and wilfully ignorant not to know that 'arrests of political dissidents at 4 in the morning' have gone on for quite some time in the UK. Up until very recently, they didn't get much other than harassment, intimidation, fines, and at most about a 12 month prison sentence, and they've hit all kinds of people outside our narrow political spectrum, as well as those that threaten MPs business interests, through perfectly peaceful and legitimate protests or legal cases. So we were still one of those 'relatively free' countries, whatever that is. But a terrifying and unprecedented case, that you, and even the Tommy Robinson types seem not to care about, that one would expect from Russia, Turkey or China, has already been tested in the UK. Obligatory disclaimer, yes, yes, I find the character detestable, but if the principle of freedom of speech is really a principle, you should be kicking up a fuss about Joshua Bonehill. He may be the real Anjem Choudrey of the right (soft liberal, alt light Yaxley Lennon is not), but Bonehill is none the less a political dissident who has spent over 5 YEARS in prison for thought and speech crimes. The principle against double jeopardy was broken with his case as well. I shall not hold my breath for a response. I doubt this will even appear or stay on your blog very long, but at least I tried.

As noted a few times, part of Mr Hitchens MoS online column is obscured, currently. There is a fix: highlight the relevant text, copy-and-paste into a document session, and all will be beautifully clear. I hope this helps.

Oops, I believe I mis-spoke, or mis-posted, in my previous posting. I fear I mis-identified the offending "Midwife" episode. So there may be 7 days-worth of anachronism there. How embarrassing in a posting in the matter of ... well … anachronism. Mea culpa.

Peter, your item on BBC 1's 'Call the Midwife' is virtually unreadable on my computer. You appear to have pasted it as a graphic rather than text, so the right-hand side has been hidden. Are you able to do anything about it?

Instead of complaining about the bbc, may I suggest you all - every one of you - forgo your televisual comfort blanket, for at least a year, and stop paying the license fee? If necessary, throw away your television.

If enough people did it, it would change politics and propaganda in the U.K. more quickly than anything. The mood music, which creates public policy, comes from the media - and there's no outlet half so powerful as the bbc.

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